By that statement I know you didn't even bother to read the article... the article went into detail on how those organizations use Macs for applications requiring performance. Mostly they were talking about Mac Pros, but there was a couple of examples of iMac use.

Exactly. They are using iMacs in appropriate situations and Mac Pros when high performance is needed. This does not make your case that iMac performance must be increased.

I don't know what you mean by "consumer use." I'm a "consumer" of many things (including food) and have been using Macs for 25 years.

With Apple supposedly moving to even thinner enclosures for iMacs, I wonder how they could squeeze a 55 watt chip inside. But if you read the article, you would see that the TCPis just that, the max rating. With the new chips moving up so many bins in speed when needed, its just possible that average power may fall low enough for Apple to manage it. Just a guess..

I thought the big deal about the 55W chip was that it incorporated other parts of the subsystem (the 'Northbridge', or something like that.) so that the heat envelope for the whole system was actually reduced.

That shows you don't know anything about Apple's machines, or the people who buy them.

I don't necessarily agree with his statement, but if you are not using Apple specific applications, what is the great allure of the Mac Pro? If you are using Adobe apps, you can get a much better performing Windows PC for less money. The current i7 900 series processors perform better than the current Xeons in the Mac Pros. There are better Xeons out there, but Apple hasn't adopted them yet, and the price vs. performance gain just isn't there. Besides most of the high-end use that would justify the purchase of a Mac Pro or comparable machine is getting moved into the data center on workstation blades. Apple is losing ground fast as virtualization and other technologies reduce the need for a high-end workstation. There better bet would be to operate at the high-end desktop end of the market with lower-priced i7 900s.

Glare is an issue. WHy do you think they still use the old cinema display in Apple class on Fifth Avenue? So everyone can see it. You can't see it from every angle with all that glare. YOu have to constantly move it .
I'll take my white matte iMac screen anyday over the current screen.
Why do you think matte is back on the Pros?
The larger the screen the more the glare.

Glare shouldn't be much of an issue when in a room, as opposed to a laptop used outside.

It gets tiring hearing people complain that they don't want to move their machine so that glare isn't a problem.

If you're a pro, you should be thinking about that, not complaining that you can't see out you window when working, as one person here once said. If you're doing color work, you shouldn't be in a room looking out the window. You should be somewhere darker. There are solutions for that too.

Ezio sells monitor shields for their matte monitors, because they know that matte monitors get just as much glare, but that it isn't as obvious (which is worse).

I thought the big deal about the 55W chip was that it incorporated other parts of the subsystem (the 'Northbridge', or something like that.) so that the heat envelope for the whole system was actually reduced.

That's true too. With the controller a part of that spec, overall chip power requirements aren't as bad looking as they look, when compared to the Core 2 currently being used.

That may be, but the iMac is going to be a tougher and tougher (if not just plainly a hard) sell as a desktop when system when there are so many i7 systems out there. It just plain time to move beyond 2 cores as the entry point on the desktop. Otherwise, people are better off buying laptops - at least then you get mobility for an otherwise evenly spec'ed Mac.

It would be nice to get more than 2 cores in an iMac, but I disagree that a 2-core iMac will be a tough sell. There will continue to be a large market for desktops, and the iMac will always do well within that market. The overall market has shifted in the last few years to laptops, but there will continue to be a large desktop market.

I would buy an iMac instead of a MacPro even if the MacPro had BETTER specs. I'd complain about it, though.

Glare shouldn't be much of an issue when in a room, as opposed to a laptop used outside.

It gets tiring hearing people complain that they don't want to move their machine so that glare isn't a problem.

If you're a pro, you should be thinking about that, not complaining that you can't see out you window when working, as one person here once said. If you're doing color work, you shouldn't be in a room looking out the window. You should be somewhere darker. There are solutions for that too.

Ezio sells monitor shields for their matte monitors, because they know that matte monitors get just as much glare, but that it isn't as obvious (which is worse).

Think is the exact kind of thinking you gave all last year when this issue came up on laptops . Thank god Apple doesn't listen to you and instead brought back matte.
I've never had a glare issue with my matte white iMac- ever.
Who works in a dark room?
Complaints indeed.
Whatever.

Glare is an issue. WHy do you think they still use the old cinema display in Apple class on Fifth Avenue? So everyone can see it. You can't see it from every angle with all that glare. YOu have to constantly move it .
I'll take my white matte iMac screen anyday over the current screen.
Why do you think matte is back on the Pros?
The larger the screen the more the glare.

Then why is Apple selling more iMacs and MBPs now than ever before?

Your preference regarding something is not the same as that of the rest of the world. Stop the tiresome negativity and caterwauling.

Apple enabled MMS with iPhone OS 3.0 in June 2009. WHat does that have to do with AT&T? It's Apple who decided it would be a feature not AT&T. You're talking about something else entirely.

Yes. Something else entirely. Like "Since Apple relented and enabled MMS, it follows that they will put desktop parts in the iMac."

Of course, the classic version of this is to list all the things Apple didn't do, then did, and use that as evidence that they are about to do something else-- tablet, TV, X-Mac, clones, port OS X to PCs, etc.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

There's no doubt that Apple will b going to new cpu's with these still rumored machines. a four core Clarksdale is $1,000 bin price. That's a lot. maybe, just maybe, if Apple can manage the cooling, they would have than in the top model, just as the top models have the current 3.0.6.

TDP for i7-820QM and i7-720QM is only 45W and the TDP for the PM55 chip is only 3.5W. It looks to me like a Clarksfield iMac would have less power to dissipate compared to the current iMac.

Intel's 1Ku prices are $364 for the i7-720QM and $546 for the i7-820QM. I am sure Apple can get a better deal than this from Intel. If the i7-920XM dual-core turbo mode on data from Intel can be extrapolated to 720QM and 820QM, these chips can run at about the same clock speed as the Core 2 models in the current iMacs when only two cores are active.

I don't necessarily agree with his statement, but if you are not using Apple specific applications, what is the great allure of the Mac Pro? If you are using Adobe apps, you can get a much better performing Windows PC for less money. The current i7 900 series processors perform better than the current Xeons in the Mac Pros. There are better Xeons out there, but Apple hasn't adopted them yet, and the price vs. performance gain just isn't there. Besides most of the high-end use that would justify the purchase of a Mac Pro or comparable machine is getting moved into the data center on workstation blades. Apple is losing ground fast as virtualization and other technologies reduce the need for a high-end workstation. There better bet would be to operate at the high-end desktop end of the market with lower-priced i7 900s.

Those i7's don't get better performance.

but chips advance on a several month step. So my Mac Pro, bought earlier this year, will have chips that are slower than machines offered later, or possibly even now.

So what? I don't buy a machine based on what some other machine will do a year from now.

Besides, you miss the point. The 8 cores and 16 threads still are very useful to me, as i often run several programs at once that are using cycles. With this machine, nothing slows down.

I also don't mind paying for a much better machine than a PC. If you want to make a fair comparison, look to a comparable machine, not a home design.

In addition, in a year and later, when more programs come out that use more cores, my machine will just get faster. Your i7, will gt slower.

Think is the exact kind of thinking you gave all last year when this issue came up on laptops . Thank god Apple doesn't listen to you and instead brought back matte.
I've never had a glare issue with my matte white iMac- ever.
Who works in a dark room?
Complaints indeed.
Whatever.

It's obvious you don't do critical work. I'm not saying a dark room, but one that isn't at high levels.

It's too bad that there are people who aren't trained properly these days, and so can't recognize glare.

SJ once told a story about how he appreciates an artisan or craftsman who pays attention to how the BACK of the product looks. Like a dresser. Yes, it's true that no one is going to see the back, so there might not be an obvious argument for using good wood and finishing it nicely. But the craftsman knows it's there.

I have the same sensibilities as Jobs. It's always a pleasure to buy a new iMac (my tool of choice) and when it arrives, take the time to admire the packaging. On the iMacs that I've had the pleasure of removing the back, I'm always impressed with the attention to detail on even the motherboard.

And just to go back and kinda refute the "iMacs are for buyers who don't care" argument, I always enjoy Apple's web presentation of the new features and comparisons to the prior model's power use, graphics abilities, CPU performance, size, weight, etc. Apple takes the effort to explain their new product in detail, with the current iMac boasting five headings: Design, Features, Mac OS X + iLife, Environment, Tech Specs. While it's probably true that most PC buyers don't understand or care about technical details, I think the Average Mac buyer certainly does.

In short, I love how Apple pushes forward relentlessly, with obvious focus going to CPU power, graphics card innovations and software. But why bother with thinner? If you don't understand, then I can't explain it to you.

By that statement I know you didn't even bother to read the article... the article went into detail on how those organizations use Macs for applications requiring performance. Mostly they were talking about Mac Pros, but there was a couple of examples of iMac use.

Hello, greater than 90% of the computer market is Windows based PCs - where do you think the greatest concentration of consumer use of computers are then? So yes, consumer use of Macs is a recent trend. Macs are still mostly (until I see numbers to the contrary) used by people who made them popular in the first place - graphics professionals, movie makers, desktop publishers, and scientists - all people that are more demanding of their equipment than your average web browsing, Microsoft Word processing user (who for the most part are using Windows PCs). Plus the consumer side of the computer market is a very small percentage of the overall computer market which is dominated by business use of computers - and business users are more demanding of their computers than the average home user.

Couple of things about this:

I don't have time to go looking for links right now, but everything I've seen suggests that Macs are doing better in the consumer market than anywhere else-- that if there were a way to measure "consumer" use exclusively, Mac market share would be substantially higher than when measured against the vast number of back room PCs filling the data centers and server farms of America.

Secondly, I don't think it's true at all that "business users are more demanding of their computers than the average home user." Business users take what IT gives them, they don't have to pay for them so they don't really care, and they're probably not going to be doing much more than running a browser, email, word processing and a data base.

That's why the average "business user" is more than likely working on a two to four year old cheap PC running XP. A machine the next iteration of the iMac will likely run rings around, but that kind of performance comparison doesn't mean very much.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

Yes. Something else entirely. Like "Since Apple relented and enabled MMS, it follows that they will put desktop parts in the iMac."

Of course, the classic version of this is to list all the things Apple didn't do, then did, and use that as evidence that they are about to do something else-- tablet, TV, X-Mac, clones, port OS X to PCs, etc.

SJ once told a story about how he appreciates an artisan or craftsman who pays attention to how the BACK of the product looks. Like a dresser. Yes, it's true that no one is going to see the back, so there might not be an obvious argument for using good wood and finishing it nicely. But the craftsman knows it's there.
.

Well the back of the current iMac could not be cheesier. Cheap looking black plastic looks like a Dell from the rear.And the white cord doesn't help neither.

So once Apple went all glossy they started selling ever more iMacs and laptops even though everybody hates them, because that's all the could get. So I guess we could use the old "the would have sold even more if they had offered matte", because there's no way on earth to test that for truth.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

SJ once told a story about how he appreciates an artisan or craftsman who pays attention to how the BACK of the product looks. Like a dresser. Yes, it's true that no one is going to see the back, so there might not be an obvious argument for using good wood and finishing it nicely. But the craftsman knows it's there.

I have the same sensibilities as Jobs. It's always a pleasure to buy a new iMac (my tool of choice) and when it arrives, take the time to admire the packaging. On the iMacs that I've had the pleasure of removing the back, I'm always impressed with the attention to detail on even the motherboard.

And just to go back and kinda refute the "iMacs are for buyers who don't care" argument, I always enjoy Apple's web presentation of the new features and comparisons to the prior model's power use, graphics abilities, CPU performance, size, weight, etc. Apple takes the effort to explain their new product in detail, with the current iMac boasting five headings: Design, Features, Mac OS X + iLife, Environment, Tech Specs. While it's probably true that most PC buyers don't understand or care about technical details, I think the Average Mac buyer certainly does.

In short, I love how Apple pushes forward relentlessly, with obvious focus going to CPU power, graphics card innovations and software. But why bother with thinner? If you don't understand, then I can't explain it to you.

Well said, I agree 100%! I can't wait to see what Apple's PHD's have dreamed up for us!

TDP for i7-820QM and i7-720QM is only 45W and the TDP for the PM55 chip is only 3.5W. It looks to me like a Clarksfield iMac would have less power to dissipate compared to the current iMac.

Intel's 1Ku prices are $364 for the i7-720QM and $546 for the i7-820QM. I am sure Apple can get a better deal than this from Intel. If the i7-920XM dual-core turbo mode on data from Intel can be extrapolated to 720QM and 820QM, these chips can run at about the same clock speed as the Core 2 models in the current iMacs when only two cores are active.

So once Apple went all glossy they started selling ever more iMacs and laptops even though everybody hates them, because that's all the could get. So I guess we could use the old "the would have sold even more if they had offered matte", because there's no way on earth to test that for truth.

Well I might have bought one if there had been matte offered- so yes, you can consider that as one more sold.

Whatever Apple does, JUST GET RID OF THE MIRRORED/GLOSSY SCREENS. PLEASE!!

Or, at the very least, offer matte as an option. AND OFFER IT AS A REAL SCREEN, not some tack-on film.

I'll be buying at least two iMacs once non-mirrored screens are available again.

I'm glad that came from you and not from me.
Sertiously, they have no idea how many sales were lost in the last 3 years from users like you and me. Even more than the gloss is the black border around the monitor itself which causes a boeing like effect. Thank god Apple realizes the mistake they made modelling everything based upon the iPhones looks.

You're all formally invited to my iMac Launch Party. I'm working on a video now. I need one black guy, one older woman, a hottie, and a nerd. It's important to show that being hip crosses all ethnic and socioeconomic lines.

I think instead of a mouse it will get a small glass (mousepad) plate like the laptops to maneuver around.

I have been hoping so too. I figured the laptop-sized keyboard was a step in this direction. I have found the mighty mouse is very unreliable and the right click only functions some of the time with a grip I am comfortable with.

How come every time Apple refreshes the iMac or Mini a bunch of people seem to forget that Apple has been using laptop parts in these machines since like forever? They begin to clamor for the latest and greatest desktop CPUs and GPUs, as if that were even a remote possibility.

Pro tip: not going to happen. Sorry. Just not Apple's thing, for better or worse. They've made a choice: laptop parts are "fast enough" for most people, and such parts allow them to emphasize the form factors that they want to build. Yes, I know those aren't the form factors some of you want, that doesn't necessarily mean Apple is wrong or crazy-- see also their recent market share gains.

It is true the that i7 mobile part just launched, so I guess there might be an outside chance that Apple will use it. Myself, wouldn't count on it.

Yes, the Core i7 mobile chips are out, now, and Apple is usually on the front of that curve. The plain fact of the matter is, that the market sees dual core as yesterday's technology. I think the masses are hungry for Core i7, and I also think the masses are hungry for an affordable tower based on a Core i7 and non-ECC memory and some solid desktop graphics like the GeForce 275GTX or better. If Apple could only deliver what the public wants...

Yes, the Core i7 mobile chips are out, now, and Apple is usually on the front of that curve. The plain fact of the matter is, that the market sees dual core as yesterday's technology. I think the masses are hungry for Core i7, and I also think the masses are hungry for an affordable tower based on a Core i7 and non-ECC memory and some solid desktop graphics like the GeForce 275GTX or better. If Apple could only deliver what the public wants...

Yup, everywhere I go, I hear about the Core i7, the GeForce 275GTX, and non-ECC memory. It's what's on everyone's mind these days.

I agree with Steve, Blu Ray is expensive and kinda useless on a computer.

First off, most programs still fit nicely on a DVD.

Second you would need a much larger then 24' display for blu ray to be useful, and for that you would need a TV, not an iMac.

Third making iMacs more expensive right now is not a very good move, the economy is not good enough to support a price increase right now.

Therefore if blu ray does come about it would have to be an option for the most expensive iMac in the family. Just my prediction.

I love this. You don't need Blu-ray - jedi mind trick.

How about I make that decision thanks

You'd need at least a 24'' screen to enjoy Blu-ray - really? How about I know that already but still want to build a collection of blu-ray discs for portable viewing which I can view later in life sitting on my couch with my large bloody prosumer plasmoid screen?

This thinking has delayed blu-ray on macs for years now. It's simply a matter of giving people the option. and while I appreciate that you are not arguing against choice, please let us just get on with it finally. let's implement Steve Job's so called big bag of hurt which I'm sure actually is another big fat bag of cash for apple

Yup, everywhere I go, I hear about the Core i7, the GeForce 275GTX, and non-ECC memory. It's what's on everyone's mind these days.

I know! I was just talking to my brother, and he was all like, "I hear they might be bringing out new iMacs, but whither quad core? I am hungry."

Seriously though, does anyone outside of gear hounds think in terms of "yesterday's technology", especially when it comes to chip sets?

Once upon a time there might have been some awareness of clock speed, but that's just because Intel was flogging same as a metric of awesomeness. Number of cores are a much harder thing to drive into the public consciousness, partly because no one much knows what that even means, and because "4 instead of 2" doesn't have quite the impact of "3GHz overclocked extreme!"

I think the iPhone is a great example of where things are headed, if they're not already there: people react to the entire device, and don't know or care what's inside. In the case of the iPhone, there was a noticeable speed up of system processes in the move from 3G to 3Gs, so people took note of that, still without caring what, exactly, had been done to the internals to make that happen.

Since the move from 2 to 4 cores is not going to have anything like that impact on the day to day use of a desktop or laptop computer, most people really have no reason to care.

What, exactly, are the folks in this thread proposing the impact of quad core is going to be on 95% of what people do with their computers? Is Firefox going to load pages 4 times as fast? Is Office going to make letters appear on the screen before you type them? Will your emails fly off your computer like missiles? Will your music sound better?

For the few that are doing genuinely processor intensive things like batch processing media or editing HD movies or doing 3D animation work, then, yes, you would probably be advised to seek the latest and greatest. But that's the few, a fact that hasn't been lost on Apple.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

It's like Apple should just buy PsyStar and make 'em legit so they have a discount line. No in-store support, no glitz. But affordable, somewhat customizable hardware.

I know Apple's been down that road before when they licensed their OS to Power and it didn't work out so well, but if they produced the bargain brand themselves, they'd reap the revenue.

An interesting idea.... but they would never, ever, EVER buy PsyStar. That would be rewarding someone that had the balls to take on Apple in court. No. Way. That. Happens.

But, Apple stealing PsyStar's business model and profiting from it after shutting them down in court would be the ultimate FU. It would also stop the defections of the power user who can't justify the price of the MacPros, and vastly increase the market share with the hobbyist crowd. They could afford to do this on the cheap, keep prices near PsyStar's level, and still maintain the industry's highest margins.

They could even make customers pre-qualify themselves by shipping only partially-assembled hardware. If you aren't comfortable installing the RAM, Hard Drive(s), Optical Drive(s) and GPU card yourself, you shouldn't be buying it. That way, they could ship only the hard drives from Apple directly (with the latest software and drivers pre-loaded), and everything else drop-ships from the hardware manufacturer. It would prevent the cannibalization of the consumer base, since DIY buyers are not buying from the current line anyway.

What, exactly, are the folks in this thread proposing the impact of quad core is going to be on 95% of what people do with their computers? Is Firefox going to load pages 4 times as fast? Is Office going to make letters appear on the screen before you type them? Will your emails fly off your computer like missiles? Will your music sound better?